The elevator chimed softly as it descended, smooth and silent. Lex stood alone, hands tucked into the pockets of his sleek leather jacket. The hum of the building faded behind him as his mind drifted to the numbers.
Maddox Holdings: -14% in 22 minutes.
Lex had dumped 10% of his personal shares in broad daylight. Simultaneously, he'd opened deep short positions—nothing dramatic, just enough to signal danger. Blood in the water. The sharks would handle the rest.
$75.68. Down from $88.
He did the math in silence. It would hit $60 before the market closed. By morning? $40 if Barnie didn't scream loud enough. Every tick downward funded another piece of Lex's empire—films, startups, ownership. Not just flash. Foundations.
The elevator chimed. The doors slid open.
Eighteen steps. That's all it took to walk from Maddox Holdings to Elias Marr's office across the street. On good days, Lex could cover it in twelve.
Elias's secretary didn't bother greeting him. She just hit the button that unlocked the door.
Lex stepped inside.
Elias stood behind his desk, a tumbler of dark amber liquid in one hand, a navy folder in the other. No pleasantries. Just a smile with too many teeth.
"You've made quite the mess," Elias said.
Lex sank into the chair across from him. "And?"
Elias dropped the folder onto the desk. "And the mess is profitable. Early numbers say we're looking at a thirty percent upside in seven days—if the panic selling keeps pace. The short positions are moving like lightning."
Lex leaned back, fingers steepled under his chin. "They'll panic. They always do."
"And the will?"
Elias smiled wider. He tapped the folder. "Validated. Notarized. Your great-grandfather's final will stands. You're the deciding vote now. Largest individual shareholder. Technically, the Maddox board answers to you."
Lex's gaze sharpened. "Good."
A knock. The door opened.
Dante stepped in, sleeves rolled, jaw tight, like he'd just finished a fistfight. "You boys watching the news?"
"Should we be?" Lex asked.
Dante tossed a folded newspaper onto the desk and pointed at the television. Elias clicked the remote.
The screen lit up: FBI RAID MADDOX HOLDINGS IN FEDERAL MONEY LAUNDERING CASE
Footage played—agents in dark jackets, hauling out boxes. One pointed up toward the security cameras. A chopper circled above like a bird of prey.
Elias gave a low whistle. "Well. That's... poetic."
Dante grinned. "Barnie's going down. His fixer, Julian Ashford? Scooped up this morning. He's already flipped."
Lex cracked a smile. "Barnie always outsourced the mess. Smart in theory."
"But stupid in the end," Dante said, grabbing the whiskey decanter from Elias's shelf.
Elias pulled out two more glasses. "Only the good stuff tonight."
They raised their drinks.
"To leverage," Elias toasted.
"To revenge," Dante added.
Lex smirked. "To legacy."
They clinked glasses, and Lex took a long sip of the whiskey. It burned slow—smooth, aged, rich with weight. The kind of drink his grandfather might've poured after closing a billion-dollar deal. He let the warmth sit on his tongue before swallowing.
He turned to the window, gaze falling on the federal agents still flooding into Maddox Holdings. Black jackets, labeled boxes moving out, heavy boots stomping down legacy. His legacy. And yet…
Lex didn't smile.
"Look at them," he muttered, his voice low. "Moving like they've already won something."
Elias glanced up from his seat, sharp eyes catching the shift in Lex's tone.
"You don't sound satisfied," he said.
Lex's fingers tightened slightly around the glass. "It's too easy."
Dante let out a short breath of amusement and leaned forward in his chair. "That's because your play was professional," he said. "Too clean. Too tight. You caught them off-guard. When I dropped off the footage at the station—barely got through the damn explanation before they hit the system. Trent? Slammed with three charges. Assault, intimidation, obstruction."
Lex arched a brow, letting Dante continue.
"They didn't even blink," Dante added, grinning. "His record lit up like a Christmas tree. Can't make bail. The other two were under eighteen—juvenile charges. But Trent? He's cooked. Public defender. Holding cell. You put him right where you wanted."
Lex's expression didn't change. "He should've remembered the first time."
"First time?" Elias asked, brow lifting slightly.
Lex stared out the window. "Another life."
Elias didn't press. He just nodded once and leaned back, crossing one leg over the other.
"This battle," Elias said calmly, "you won. And that matters. You've got press, narrative, market disruption. The company's bleeding, but you're sitting dry. Good start."
Lex finally turned from the window, setting his glass down with a soft clink.
"It's not the end," he said. "We're still in the first act."
Elias offered a faint, rare smile. "And a hell of an opening."
Before another word passed between them, Lex's phone vibrated once in his coat pocket.
VANESSA CARLISLE – CALLING
Lex answered, cool and composed. "Vanessa."
Her voice purred through the line, sharp as ever. "Lexington. I wanted to personally thank you."
"For?"
"For the documentary," she said. "Already cut the teaser. It's brutal. Every ugly dollar Barnie touched in the last decade is laid bare."
Lex smiled faintly. "I knew you'd make it sing."
"Oh, it does more than sing," Vanessa replied, her tone silk over steel. "It screams. Your team was smart added a closing frame—slow zoom on Barnie's mugshot, scored to strings. It's haunting."
"Poetic," Lex murmured.
"And just the beginning," she added. "By the time we're done, he'll be a ghost in every boardroom from East to West. He buried me once. This time, I'm burying him."
Lex's smile widened. "You'll have help."
"I better," Vanessa replied smoothly. "Because I intend to turn this story into a legacy-killer."
Lex's gaze flicked to Elias, then Dante—still quiet, listening—and he nodded once.
"Then let's burn it all down," he said.
Vanessa's voice dipped to a whisper, pleased and dangerous. "Now you sound like me."
The call ended with a soft click.
Lex lowered the phone slowly, the faint hum of the city filling the quiet.
Outside, the sun dipped low behind the skyline, bleeding gold and fire across the windows. Federal agents still swarmed through the glass skeleton of Maddox Holdings, hauling out boxes like undertakers. Legacy reduced to paperwork and inventory.
Lex watched them for a long moment, arms crossed, the full glass of whiskey still resting near his fingertips.
He'd done it.
It was real. Barnie was cornered. The board shook. The market blinked.
Lex had landed a blow that actually hurt.
And for the first time, since his second chance started he let himself feel it—victory. Small, sharp, and just heavy enough to taste.
But not satisfying.
Because he knew better. One win didn't end the war.
Barnie wasn't finished. Men like him didn't crawl into the dirt—they lashed out before they fell. And Lex had learned that the hard way, once upon a time.
Lex exhaled slowly and turned from the window, his reflection vanishing with the last of the light.
"Round one," Lex muttered under his breath. "Now let's see if you can get back up."
Behind him, the ice clinked gently in Elias's glass as he swirled the last of his whiskey.
Elias gave a faint smirk. "I hate to say this but Barnie was never the real endgame. He's the first firewall. You've cracked it. But the real enemy…" He let that trail off, fingers tapping the rim of his glass. "Could come tomorrow. Could come two years from now. The moment you become a threat to the wrong shadow, you'll know. But right now you hold all the rights cards to play the long game."
Dante, leaning against the edge of Elias's desk, drained his glass in one clean tilt and set it down with a soft clink.
"You're lucky, kid," Dante said, his voice lower, more grounded. "Not just because you pulled this off, but because you're still standing after it."
Lex turned slightly to him, eyes curious.
"I've worked with men who had less reason to fight and lost more than they ever bargained for," Dante continued, arms folded. "Mob victims, ex-feds. You know what I always tell them when they think they've won?"
Lex raised a brow. "What?"
Dante tapped two fingers against the side of his temple. "Don't forget what makes it matter. Why you started. What you're protecting. The moment you stop remembering that—you start becoming the thing you're trying to destroy."
He nodded once, the edge of a smirk forming again—smaller this time. Controlled.
Lex turned slightly, eyes drawn back to the Maddox tower. A small crowd had gathered. Camera flashes popped through the dusk, and a line of news vans blocked part of the curb. Lex narrowed his gaze—center frame was Charlotte.
She stood in front of the glass doors, perfectly styled in a pearl-gray coat, her hair pinned in a way that screamed both elegance and control. Several microphones crowded around her, and for once, she looked fully in her element—Maddox blood on display.
Lex stepped closer to the window as the audio kicked in on a nearby news feed.
"…the board has voted to maintain confidence in Mr. Maddox," Charlotte was saying, voice crisp and measured, her tone laced with diplomatic calm. "We believe in due process, and it's clear to us this was all a targeted by a resentful ex-wife with personal motives and access."
Lex's smirk faded.
There it was.
She wasn't defending Barnie. She was defending the brand. The façade. Maddox Holdings.
Framing it all as a bitter ex's vendetta gave the board cover to delay action. Stall. It was clever. Cold.
And it confirmed one thing: Charlotte was still playing both sides.
Lex tapped the glass with one knuckle, his eyes locked on the screen. "Smart," he muttered. "But not enough."
She was buying time.
For now he'd let them defend Barnie for now. Because when Lex made his next move, there wouldn't be a press conference. There'd only be headlines.